


labor of love

by hardkourparcore



Category: Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: Christmas Cookies, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, can you believe i have to create ANOTHER ship tag i swear ao3 has no taste
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28451133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardkourparcore/pseuds/hardkourparcore
Summary: Everyone in Seliph's army knows Lana is the mothering type, but this year she's fallen under the weather, so Lene takes over making holiday treats.
Relationships: Leen | Lene/Phee | Fee, implied julia/lana
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5
Collections: Fire Emblem Christmas Rare Pair Exchange 2020





	labor of love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glory_of_bygone_days](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glory_of_bygone_days/gifts).



> this was a gift for glory-of-bygone-days for the fe rarepair exchange! they asked for literally any f/f with winter or christmasy theme... i wanted to give them one of my favorite gen 2 ships with a lot of fluff and a lot of sapphic solidarity. i hope you enjoy!!

Fee found Lene already in the kitchen, pouring over hand-written pages and the beginnings of pastries and looking just a little frustrated. It was in a cute way -- she had her lips slightly pouted, brow furrowed cutely. It was the sort of thing Fee would totally run up and hug her from behind squealing about how cute she looked, but she restrained herself in favor of learning what exactly her girlfriend was doing.

“Whatcha up to?” she asked, sliding herself beside Lene and leaning over so she could look the dancer in the eye.

Lene jolted, surprised at Fee’s sudden appearance. Recognizing her a moment after, her expression shifted into a pleasant smile. “Oh, Fee. Hello.”

Despite the cold weather outside, Fee was dressed as she normally did, which was to say as a dancer. The only difference was an apron covering her front, and flour that had stuck to her arms and hands.

“Didn’t I tell you that you should be wearing a jacket?” Fee teased. 

“It’s not cold in the kitchen!” Lene protested. She was beaming, though, so Fee got exactly what she’d wanted. “I’m… baking.”

She turned her gaze to the counter before her, almost as if she weren’t sure if that were really the case. The evidence was clear, though. She was busy rolling out some dough with a rolling pin, but the dough was curled around the wood ineffectually. Around the space she used to do this were all the other tell-tale signs of baking; bowls and measuring tools; patches of spilt flour and bags of ingredients; and a few eggshells cracked open and resting nearby.

“What a mess!” Fee exclaimed. “You, girlie, need some major help.”

She quickly pulled herself to another corner of the kitchen, where aprons were commonly kept for the use of whoever needed them. 

“Luckily for you,” she continued as she tied it behind her back, “I know my way around a kitchen.”

Even if her knowledge was mostly self-taught out of necessity (considering her bedridden mother and the older brother who spent all his time finding the medicine and doctors to care for her), Fee was more than confident she could at least keep the dough from sticking to the rolling pin. All that aside, it wasn’t as though she needed a strong reason to help her girlfriend with something domestic and sweet, either.

“So, what are we making and why?” Fee asked, once she was again at Lene’s side.

Lene sighed, removing her hands from all tools and holding them before her like she didn’t trust what they were capable of. 

“Cookies! For the season! Seasonal cookies!” Her voice was strained, despite the fact that  _ seasonal cookies _ seemed like a great thing to be doing at this time.

Lene pouted again. Fee resisted the urge, yet again, to pull her into a comforting hug. She could comfort her by helping, after all.

“Lana’s feeling poorly,” Lene explained. “I overheard her talking to Julia that she was disappointed she wasn’t going to be able to bake for everyone this year, and it made her miss her mother even more…”

Both of the women in the kitchen knew a thing or two about missing their mothers. The obvious went unspoken.

“I just wanted to do something nice for her, but..." Lene trailed off, averting her gaze. "I really don't know how to cook, I guess. The dough just sticks to everything and I don't know what shapes to cut them into... Or if I use a knife for that...."

She huffed, shrugging her shoulders. Fee put her hands there, turning Lene towards her and staring her straight in the eye. “Listen. Lene. Sugar. Honey. Lollipop. Baby-girl.”

With each pet name from Fee’s lips (some never said before and merely chosen for their relationship to the task at hand), Lene’s frustrated pout steadily gave way to a smile. It grew wider and wider, until Lene was no longer looking at all upset.

Fee grinned herself, too. All according to plan. “We are going to make the best cookies Lana’s never made, and she’ll be so happy you thought to do this for her that she’ll let us eat them all ourselves.”

Lene raised a hand to her face in a demure attempt to hide how wide her smile was at this point. “We’re making them to share!” she corrected.

“Yeah, I got you.” Fee winked. She was joking. There was no way she’d eat that many sugar cookies herself.

“First things first,” she started, letting go of Lene’s shoulders and turning towards the mess the dancer had made of the counter. “You got flour in all the wrong places. It shouldn’t be on you or by the… eggshells… we need it on the dough.”

And so began Fee’s amateur instruction. She did her best to remember all the kitchen tricks her mother had bestowed upon her and use them appropriately. She also took every opportunity she could to make the occasion as romantic as possible.

When Lene took a knife to the rolled-out dough, Fee’s hand guided hers, with Fee herself standing behind Lene and nearly hugging her. Putting the cookie tray into the oven could easily have been a one-woman job, but Fee took one side and Lene took the other. 

All these playful touches and gestures was enough to put a perpetual smile on Lene’s face. It was something that had once been rare to find on the dancer, but Fee prided herself on being an expert on drawing them out.

Once the cookies were set to bake, Lene reached behind herself. “That was a lot more work than I expected!”

To be fair, she’d done most of it before Fee barged in to assist, but she definitely wasn’t done yet.

“Hold on,” Fee said. She reached out again, setting a gentle hand on Lene’s upper arm. The other stopped untying her apron, and watched Fee’s expression, curious.

“Yes?”

“We still have to decorate them, don’t we?” she asked rhetorically. “Of course we do! And for that, we have to make the icing.”

“Oh! That’s right!” Lene dropped her hands from behind her back, and set one on Fee’s hip. “And surely you know exactly how to go about that, right? I have recipes but…”

“I got you,” Fee replied with a wink. 

She couldn’t resist any longer. She quickly placed a peck on Lene’s cheek and pulled away to gather the appropriate ingredients. Butter, sugar, a little cream… And they needed the right coloring too.

“What color icing do you want?” she asked.

“Well, for the season… Red and green should be good, shouldn’t it?” 

“Sure, if you want,” Fee replied. “But I know you like  _ pink _ and there’s nothing stopping us from making pink icing instead.”

Lene let out a giggle. Her laughs always sounded musical. Fee was convinced it was a dancer thing. “Pink and?”

“Green, of course. For your hair.”

Lene placed her hand on Fee’s shoulder. “For  _ your _ hair!” she asserted, leaning into the knight.

“No, just yours,” Fee dismissed, grinning.

Since Lene had come so far in baking by the time Fee had entered, Fee hadn’t the time to get as messy as her girlfriend had been. The icing gave her the opportunity, and against her better judgment, she ended up covered in various stages of the icing’s development, in odd splotches on her hands and arms. She actually didn’t notice it until Lene pointed it out.

“We are both quite the mess,” she commented. She was still whisking one bowl of icing as she’d been directed, while Fee handled the other.

“At least we’re  _ pretty _ messes,” Fee replied, sticking her tongue out.

“Speak for yourself!”

She shook her head. “Well,” she amended thoughtfully. “There’s no mirror around here, so I can only assume I look as cute as I did this morning. You, on the other hand? Definitely pretty.”

Lene laughed again, and Fee joined her.

Soon enough, the kitchen was full of the smell of baked cookies - Fee’s only indication that they were appropriately cooked. They retrieved the treats from the oven, and left them out to cool so that the icing wouldn’t melt as soon as they were decorated.

Both of them snuck an undecorated cookie for themselves, however, and made a pact not to tell a soul. They filled the rest of their waiting with dramatic tales of how disappointed Lana, Julia, and all of Seliph’s army would be should they ever come to learn of the two cookies missing from the great number Lene and Fee had otherwise accomplished. Lana would be disappointed, banning the two from the kitchen for all eternity. Julia would never speak to them again! And Arthur would cry outright at their betrayal.

By the time the cookies were sufficiently cooled, Fee had a stitch in her stomach from laughing, and Lene was complaining her cheeks hurt.

The two set about decorating them. Lene needed less help on that front -- in fact, her hands seemed steadier than Fee’s. Fee’s ended up looking poorly made. Frosting spilled off the edges of some cookies. Lene’s looked immaculate in Fee’s admittedly biased opinion. 

But they were finally done.

Once they were certain the icing wouldn’t get everywhere should the cookies be stacked, the two piled them onto a plate. They didn’t even bother cleaning themselves off; so excited they were to deliver the fruit of their labors to Lana.

She was in her room. They knocked, to be polite, and Julia’s voice asked pleasantly who was there.

Lene started to answer honestly, but Fee cut her off. “Who cares? We brought cookies.”

“Oh then you are definitely allowed to enter, my good lady!” Julia replied from the other side.

The two stepped in to see Lana sitting on the bed and absolutely wrapped in blankets. Julia sat beside her, with a book open across her lap.

“I do hope they’re up to your standards, Lana,” Lene said as she presented the tray to the cleric. “We did our best.”

“It’s the efforts of our blood, sweat, and tears,” Fee added.

Lana giggled. “Ewww.”

She took one regardless and ate one, then grabbed another to give to Julia. “Oh, Lene, these are delicious!”

Lene blushed. She leaned heavily into Fee, beaming with pride. “I’m so glad!”

Fee curved her arm around Lene’s waist, allowing her to lean and drawing her ever closer, though she was careful to be gentle; jostling Lene too much might have resulted in dislodged cookies falling to the floor.

“It was all Lene,” she said. “She did all this work herself.”

“Fee!” Lene protested. “That is so untrue! I couldn’t do it without you!”

“She could have, she’s just being modest.”

“Well!” Julia said. “They are very good. May I have another? Or perhaps another two? I don’t want to take from the others, but I’m sure they will be ravenous by now.”

Lene held out the platter again.

“Thank you two so much,” Lana spoke up. She curled herself back into the blankets, her hands out of sight once again. “This was really sweet of you.”

“It’s no trouble at all!” Lene replied. She had a lovely sparkle in her eye as she looked up to Fee, smiling beautifully. “In fact, it was a joy to make them.”


End file.
